The Council adopted conclusions in preparation for the 18th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which will take place in Doha (Qatar ), from 26 November to 7 December 2012.
These conclusions set out the main elements of the EU position and assess progress made regarding the so-called "Durban package" which includes 3 negotiating strands:
- the Durban Platform track, agreed at the Durban Conference last year, which should result by 2015 in a global post-2020 agreement;
- the Kyoto Protocol track that should result in the adoption of a second commitment period; and
- the (UNFCC) Convention track which should resolve the outstanding issues.
The main elements of the EU position relate to the need to maintain the balance of the Durban package by advancing all its elements at the Doha Conference:
- making significant progress on both work streams of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (a process with an agreed timeline to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties and another process to increase the level of global mitigation ambition in the period up to 2020);
- finalising the outstanding issues in order to adopt a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol;
- closing the Convention track with meaningful outcomes on inter alia a new market-based mechanism and accounting.
The Durban package: to recap, for many years, the European Union has played an important role in combating climate change and actively participates in international negotiations. Following the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change (7-18 December 2009), a gradual approach has been taken towards international negotiations on climate change. At the Cancun Conference (29 November-11 December 2010), substantial progress was made on important aspects of the main elements of a future framework, common vision, adaptation, as well as financing, technology transfer and capacity building. The Durban Conference on Climate Change (28 November-9 December 2011) went further: the Durban Package includes the following elements:
DurbanPlatform for Enhanced Action: to develop a new Protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force that will be applicable to all Parties to the UN climate convention. The decision states that this process shall raise levels of ambition in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The new instrument is to be adopted by 2015 and be implemented from 2020. In the Durban Package it is formally decided that a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will run from 1 January 2013, thus avoiding a gap at the end of the first commitment period finishing in 2012. New rules on forestry management approved as part of the package will improve the Protocol's environmental integrity. Parties' quantified targets for reducing emissions, as well as rules governing the carry over of surplus emission rights from the first commitment period, will be decided at the end of next year.
Green Climate Fund and other new bodies: the Durban outcome makes operational the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) by finalising its design and governance arrangements. The GCF is expected to be one of the major distribution channels for the US$ 100 billion in assistance which developed countries have pledged to mobilise for developing nations annually by 2020 in the context of meaningful mitigation efforts. The arrangements needed to make operational the new Technology Mechanism and Adaptation Committee were also agreed.
The Durban Package brings into operation new arrangements for making more transparent the actions taken by both developed and developing countries to address their emissions. This is a key measure for building trust between Parties.
New mechanisms and sectors: a new market-based mechanism was established to enhance the cost-effectiveness of actions to reduce emissions. A process was also launched to consider climate issues related to agriculture, with a view to taking a decision at the end of 2012.
Council Conclusions on the Durban Package: the Council’s position may be summarised as follows:
- Implementation of the Convention: the Council welcomes the overall progress made in Durban in the areas of adaptation, mitigation, technology, financing and capacity-building, thereby enabling further implementation of the Cancún Agreements. It emphasises the importance of clarifying pledges of both developed and developing countries in order to assess collective progress towards achieving the objective of keeping global temperature increase below 2°C. It welcomes the establishment of a new market-based mechanism, which aims to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions, ensuring a net decrease and/or avoidance of global greenhouse gas emissions. It looks forward to the elaboration and adoption at the Doha Conference of the modalities and procedures of the new market-based mechanism so as to make it operational as soon as possible;
- Cancún Agreements: the Council emphasises the central importance of transparent implementation of commitments made in the context of the Kyoto Protocol through Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) as decided in the Cancún Agreements, in particular. The Council underlines the need for a multilaterally agreed common, rigorous, robust and transparent accounting and MRV pre-2020 framework with comprehensive rules to ensure environmental integrity, enable tracking progress against Parties' commitments and ensure comparability of effort as well as for effective carbon trading, linking of carbon markets and any use of offsets or credits against Parties' commitments, including rules for countries participating in the new market-based mechanism or in the framework for various approaches. The Council underlines the importance of adopting common accounting rules applicable to all Parties for the period beyond 2020;
- REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation - including the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks): the Council welcomes the Durban decisions on REDD+, in particular on safeguards, forest reference levels and forest reference emission levels. It considers it essential to make further progress in Doha in developing technical guidance, including on the identification of activities linked to drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, the modalities for national forest monitoring systems and for MRV of REDD+. In this context, the Council calls on developing countries planning to undertake REDD+ activities to provide information on the development of their forest reference levels and/or forest reference emission levels and on how the safeguards are addressed with a view to the Doha Conference.
The Council is committed to the continued implementation of the Cancún Adaptation Framework, identifying actions to enhance coherence of adaptation activities under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It fully supports the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP 18) which it expects to take all the necessary initiatives in the run-up to the Doha Conference. Lastly, it emphasises its willingness to further strengthen the dialogue and to work closely with all Parties for a strong and effective international regime as well as robust climate action on the ground.